Point From Which Creation Begins: The Black Artists' Group of St. Louis

Book Description

From 1968 to 1972, St. Louis was home to the Black Artists' Group (BAG), a seminal arts collective that nurtured African American experimentalists involved with theater, visual arts, dance, poetry, and jazz. Inspired by the reinvigorated black cultural nationalism of the 1960s, artistic collectives had sprung up around the country in a diffuse outgrowth known as the Black Arts Movement. These impulses resonated with BAG's founders, who sought to raise black consciousness and explore the far reaches of interdisciplinary performance-all while struggling to carve out a place within the context of St. Louis history and culture. By fusing social concern and artistic innovation, the group significantly reshaped the St. Louis and, by extension, the American arts landscape.

Customer Reviews:

They don't want you to read this book.......2007-09-07

I have the distinct impression that there are large and powerful forces in the United States who most definitely want to forget about, not know about, and or leave undocumented important cultural movements like the Black Artists Group documented in Benjamin Looker's book. If you watch the series on jazz that Ken Burnes did for PBS in the '90s, for example, you will be informed absolutely nothing, zero, zilch, about the extremely talented, re-structuralist (to use a term of Anthony Braxton's) musical artists (and forget about the poets, playwrights, dancers and visual artists)in this book.
In other words, ACCORDING TO MAINSTREAM USA MEDIA, THE PEOPLE IN THIS BOOK DO NOT EXIST AND NEVER EXISTED.
The extremely fertile cultural movement exemplified by BAG, which was inspired by the great creative music organization founded by Muhal Richard Abrams in the early 60's called the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, phenomenon of this type is IGNORED to an extent that is really CRIMINAL. And I am told by people involved in this music scene (which still exists and thrives despite the neglect) that PBS will fund, produce and/or broadcast a series on the AACM, BAG and other collectives like it probably around the same time that HELL FREEZES OVER. I have seen Laurence Welk reruns on PBS, and Ken Burnes pathetically mediocre jazz series. But the AACM and BAG.... oh, well, never mind.
If you have any interest in quality art that speaks to the human condition and creativity, music that can make you really think and feel, I strongly recommend that you buy this book. Please.
This is the book I was thinking about writing myself, but never even came close to getting around to doing it. My life is just to loony and disorganized I guess. Benjamin Looker actually makes extensive use of an interview I did with on the the BAG founding members, Floyd LeFlore, (who I have played many concerts with and who happens to be one of the best friends I ever had). Floyd and I actually perform 2 of his poems with music on an album of mine, Consonants and Dissonants (Vid Recordings) by David Parker. (It's not listed in the books discography because technically the album isn't LED by a BAG member.) You can find the CD if you search Cadence Magazine's website, as well as someday on my website if I ever get the Vid Recordings website back on line (what I wrote earlier about being hopelessly disorganized).
It occurs to me that Laclede Town, which is written about fairly extensively in Benjamin Lookers book, should be documented a lot more in books. It is a neighborhood, brimming with an idealistic vibe, that sprang up in st. Louis in the 60s, that no longer exists. yet another historic reality that the powers that be doesn't want you to know about. I lived there for maybe 5 or 6 years old, our house just a stone's throw
away from LaClede Town's Circle Coffee Shop and Bookstore, (although I had no interest whatsoever at the time in the music that Oliver Lake and Floyd LeFlore were playing there). I remember attending Berea Presbyterian Church. Actually I remember very little, other than a general, and to me very very important highly idealistic and loving vibe that I think the USA needs a lot more of. (I actually heard Oliver Lake say the same thing, more or less.) I hope someone writes a book about Laclede Town.
Is there anyone out there reading this who grew up and or remembers Laclede Town. You are more than welcome to write me (ranpar2000@yahoo.com). I would like to hear your memories.
Dominic Schaeffer (his family, in fact, is an interesting story) has a little article about Laclede Town on the internet, http://www.thecommonspace.org/2003/10/communities.php . Dominic endorses this book as well.
Oliver Lake, by the way, endorses this book on his website.

Oh to hell with it, let's just forget the past and become a bunch of mindless zombies repeating what they tell us on TV. Thinking creatively just takes too much effort.

David Parker

A fascinating microcosm of the Black Arts Movement.......2005-03-23

The Civil Rights Movement (and urban crisis) inspired African American artists to explore political and cultural issues through various experimental media including theater, visual arts, dance, poetry and jazz. As artists created collectives in major urban centers like Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit and New York, this "Black Arts Movement" (BAM) flourished from the mid-1960's through the 1970's.

St. Louis was home to one such collective, the Black Artists' Group (BAG) from 1968 to 1972. BAG was not the best-known BAM collective, nor the longest lived. But a close examination of its intensely productive life is instructive as it uncovers the impact of racial dynamics, debates over civil rights, black nationalism, and the role of the arts in political and cultural struggles found any time social concern meets artistic innovation.

As the author states, "Although the critics' gaze has focused mostly on the coasts, a richer, more complex, and more problematic vision of the Black Arts Movement emerges when regional cooperatives such as BAG are brought back into the light." Consequently, the book is more than simply a role call of famous innovative artists nurtured by BAG (Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, and Emilio Cruz, to name but a few) as the author explores issues of controversy such as the recruitment of funding from white liberal sources...crucial to both BAG's founding and ultimately, its dissolution. But dissolution was simply another beginning as members moved on to play dominant roles in other spaces, both in the US and abroad.

The book is thoroughly researched and documented; the author conducted over 50 interviews with BAG artists and others, transcripts of which now reside at the Missouri Historical Society (when permitted by the interviewee.) I appreciated Looker's clear and concise style - his prose flows naturally and is a joy to read. I would have liked more images of visual arts, but this is a minor criticism and perhaps not even a fair one, since I've no idea of what's available. Additional resources include a discography of recordings led by BAG performers, 1970-73.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in the Black Arts Movement.

Book Description

Uniforms are not unique to Japan, but their popularity there suggests important linkages: material culture, politico-economic projects, bodily management, and the construction of subjectivity are all connected to the wearing of uniforms. This book examines what the donning of uniforms says about cultural psychology and the expression of economic nationalism in Japan. Conformity in dress is especially apparent amongst students, who are required to wear uniforms by most schools. Drawing on concrete examples, the author focuses particularly on student uniforms, which are key socializing objects in Japan's politico-economic order, but also examines 'office ladies' (secretaries), 'salary men' (white collar workers), service personnel, and housewives, who wear a type of uniformed dress. Arguing that uniforms can be viewed as material markers of a life cycle managed by powerful politico-economic institutions, he also shows that resistance to official state projects is expressed by 'anti-uniforming' modes of self.

Customer Reviews:

A very serious book on uniforms..........2003-08-23

A very detailed book about uniforms in Japan, with major focus on school uniforms, but the book also deals with post-school uniforms in the work place and even in the home. Lots of examples and a solid foundation set on past studies, books and surveys. The author also shows the anti-uniform culture, which sometimes ends up being just as uniform. Formal uniforms vs. the cult of playful kawaisa (cuteness).
Really interesting, seeming to follow the changes within the life of the Japanese, from school uniforms, to the college rest period (where you wear whatever you want), to the uniform (and job)they will be wearing the rest of their life.

Uniforms and Cuteness and Control and Protest.......2001-03-21

McVeigh examines how clothing in Japan, specifically the uniform, acts both as social control and socializing mechanism, and also functions as a site for protest and differentiation. Along with the first part, which deals mainly with uniforms, there's also fascinating discussion of Japan's "cult of cuteness", an aesthetic which is fundamentally Japanese and which ranges from Hello Kitty to hardcore .... Did you know that some Japanese schoolgirls actually choose their schools based on how "cute" the school uniform is? Too much. Cool book.

Customer Reviews:

But Darling, I'm Your Auntie Mame.......2007-09-17

This is a well written and interesting book that gives the reader an "insider's" view of the history of all of the varied productions, stage and screen, of both Auntie Mame and Mame. It's interesting to see the personalities and egos of the playwrights, the actors, producers, directors and choreographers interplay with the characteristics of the character herself. Auntie Mame always wins. She embraces those who are in tune with her and easily dispatches those who are not. Mame remains invincible.

The Best People at their Worst.......2007-08-23

I enjoyed this compendium of backstage lore, but other reviewers are correct in saying that Jordan provides little context for the phenomenon of AUNTIE MAME. But who cares about that really when you have all these wonderful stories of difficult people and the tantrums they throw to get their own way?

Sumner Locke Elliott, the playwright and novelist originally hired to adapt Patrick Dennis' 1955 novel to the stage, gives a chiseled portrait of the late Rosalind Russell, depicting her as a sort of sacred monster who made sure everything went her way. Russell was never a great star but she knew how to adapt her act for changing times, and turned from comedy to drama to musical to farce to suspense to religion, whatever paid the rent. Her efforts at drama were pretty feeble, she was no Nazimova that's for sure, but in the annals of high comedy she will always have a shining place due to the sheer intensity of her performances in HIS GIRL FRIDAY, THE WOMEN, and of course AUNTIE MAME.

Jordan shows us how Hollywood got it wrong, casting Lucy as Mame when the cognoscenti wanted Lansbury in the musical version of Dennis' play. After reading this book I felt sorry for Lucy for the first time in my life, for reading the savage reviews attacking her physical appearance is actually painful, as though all the critics in the world had turned into John Simon for this one occasion. Lucy was 61, is that really 15 or 20 years too old to play Auntie Mame? Why? Not that Lucy was any good, I'm not standing up for her, but no one deserves the venom she got for playing in that one movie, shooting herself in both feet for her arrogance and pride and vanity.

Jerry Herman wrote the foreword to this book, but could he really have read it? He comes off like a spoiled princess, scuttling plans for a TV remake of MAME with Bette Midler for no good reason, then lacing into a great screenwriter for daring to pen an adaptation of MAME with the temerity to cut two horrible Herman numbers (Saint Bridgette and That's How Young I Feel) which are, apparently, sacrosanct. Jerry Herman always seems so good natured and sweet, but now after reading this book I know he's a Teri-Hatcher style diva.

Terrific Book.......2006-06-25

I don't know what edition of this wonderful book some of the reviewers had read, but in the current one I just purchased from Amazon, there are none of the grammer errors or typos mentioned in other reviews.

For anone who loves Auntie Mame in any of her creations, play, musical or R. Russel film, this is a must have book. (I won't mention the disaster film with Lucille Ball although it is also covered in the book).

I was lucky enough to have seen Miss Russell on stage and Angela Lansbury twice on stage. They were so different yet so right as this wonderful lady. That is the clue to Mame, she is not a funny woman, she is an excentric LADY. Her humor comes from being elegant, beautiful and excentric. (The only real failure I saw was Bea Lilli in London.)

This book is filled with terrific backstage stories, confirming some already told and stating new ones. It is a book impossible to put down once you pick it up.

For a really fun and enjoyabloe read, a Mame fan could not do better.

Mame fan finds it disappointing.......2004-04-21

I looked forward to reading this book, having discovered the novel Auntie Mame as a child and then finding Around the World with A,M. years later.
As a few other reviewers have remarked, there is a disconnect in the book between the novel and the movies/plays, There is a small effort to explain the differences among performers but it is perfunctory.
I found this book rather shallow and superficial. There is little substance or depth to it. It would have been nice to read some analysis of how so many actresses could portray the same role in the musical play and whether that enhances the play's value or detracts from it,
It is occasionally enjoyable and certainly a quick read but the style is that of a
gushing fan with very little discrimination and a very elementary view of the
phenomenon of Auntie Mame. The book is almost too tactful and respectful sometimes, e.g., not naming individuals who behaved badly or summarizing Uncle Mame, the biography of Tanner but leaving out major facts.

Great REVISED edition more photos/gossip (Cher/Barbra/Bette).......2004-03-25

I'm so thankful that Kensington has republished this wonderful, long out-of-print treasure and went several steps beyond by having the author UPDATE the book. We now have a fuller picture of the recent battles to bring AUNTIE MAME to the big and small screen with Richard Jordan detailing all the initial interest, demands for script changes, and collapse of various projects when scripts were written (and REWRITTEN) for actresses like Angela Lansbury, Goldie Hawn, Whoopi Goldberg, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler and Cher. Jordan not only read many of the scripts--which range from misguided (Goldie Hawn's script would have been set in the 60s and present day) to the glorious. BUT DARLING... is filled with great B&W photos and whether you're a fan of the Rosalind Russell AUNTIE MAME or even the Lucille Ball musical MAME (did you know Madeline Kahn was fired from that film by Lucy?), there's plenty of gossip and deep affection for the creators (not only Patrick Dennis but Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee and Jerry Herman). A fascinating, enlightening tale of the evolution of this eternal gay icon who told us to "Live! Live! Live! Life is a banquette and most poor suckers are starving to death!" The perfect gift for movie and theatre buffs.

Book Description

Youngsters learn about a tambourine, bassoon, violin, guitar, tuba, and 11 other instruments with the help of "magical" pictures.

Customer Reviews:

The Origin of "Warhammer 40K".......2005-02-05

This was it: the original game rulesbook that led to all of the editions of the "Warhammer 40,000" miniatures game that were to follow.

Things were wilder then.... rules aimed at small-unit skirmishes, more detail to weapons and equipment, you could equip your forces with just about anything you wanted.... almost a semi-role-playing feel to things. And plenty of background material for the setting, too. Great fun!

If you're looking for some of the original materials that gave rise to what has become known in some circles as "The Warhammer 40,000 Hobby" then don't pass this one up!

Average customer rating:

Please - No More Footnotes

Devil take the Hindmost: a history of financial speculation

The Devil is in the Details

History and Industry under one cover

A wonderful book!

Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
Edward Chancellor
Manufacturer: Plume
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Similar Items:

Manias, Panics, and Crashes: A History of Financial Crises (Wiley Investment Classics)

Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk

Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets

ASIN: 0452281806
Release Date: 2000-06-05

Amazon.com

"The longest bull market in history" is a term that gets used a lot these days. Since 1990, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen some 8,000 points, from around 2,700 in January 1990 to nearly 11,000 today--a boom by anyone's standards, including Edward Chancellor's. In Devil Take the Hindmost, Chancellor takes an entertaining, albeit sobering, look at the history of speculative manias and the mass delusion that surrounds them.

Beginning with the "tulipomania" that gripped Holland in the 1630s, Chancellor chronicles the formations and irrational euphoria that can inflate markets, from shares of South Sea stock in England in the 1720s to real estate in Japan in the late 1980s. He characterizes the speculative spirit as one that

loves freedom, detests cant, and abhors restrictions. From the tulip Colleges of the seventeenth century to the Internet investment clubs of the late twentieth century, speculation has established itself as the most demotic of economic activities. Although profoundly secular, speculation is not simply about greed. The essence of speculation remains a Utopian yearning for freedom and equality which counterbalances the drab rationalistic materialism of the modern economic system with its inevitable inequalities of wealth.

But it's precisely such inevitability that always seems to win out, when "sharply rising prices followed by sudden panic without cause" bring speculative excess to an abrupt end.

Chancellor makes Devil Take the Hindmost especially relevant to today's U.S. investors by using his analysis of past speculative manias as a lens through which to view the current bull-market binge. No matter what his or her current investment outlook is--bull or bear--anyone with capital to invest would do well to spend a thoughtful weekend with this book. Highly recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

Book Description

Is your investment in that new Internet stock a sign of stock market savvy or an act of peculiarly American speculative folly? How has the psychology of investing changed--and not changed--over the last five hundred years? Edward Chancellor examines the nature of speculation--from medieval Europe to the Tulip mania of the 1630s to today's Internet stock craze. A contributing writer to The Financial Times and The Economist, Chancellor looks at both the psychological and economic forces that drive people to "bet" their money in markets; how markets are made, unmade, and manipulated; and who wins when speculation runs rampant. Drawing colorfully on the words of such speculators as Sir Isaac Newton, Daniel Defoe, Ivan Boesky, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, Devil Take the Hindmost is part history, part social science, and purely illuminating: an erudite and hugely entertaining book that is more timely today than ever before.

"Entertaining, useful, admirable scholarship . . . Chancellor seems to have read everything." --Adam Smith, The New York Times Book Review

"Anyone contemplating a stock market venture and certainly anyone now involved should read this book."--John Kenneth Gailbraith

Customer Reviews:

Please - No More Footnotes.......2007-09-04

I'm fairly shocked by the extensive number of 5 star ratings for this book. This book is quite painful to read, but not because the stories are tragic or the warnings frightening. Though the messages contained within are important, the author rambles incoherently and the extensive use of footnotes is overly distracting. The footnotes for many pages are longer than the primary text and should have been incorporated into the main story line. Chancellor is in need of an editor with an iron fist toward readability.

Devil take the Hindmost: a history of financial speculation.......2007-05-30

nothing better to understand greed, manias and self destructive behavior driven by speculative sentiments and moves by iundividuals and society.

The Devil is in the Details.......2007-05-04

Edward Chancellor is a journalist for the Financial Times and has delivered one of the most balanced and well researched expositions on runaway speculation that I have read. Chancellor argues, with a great amount of painstakingly researched detail data, that structural macro-economic conditions create an atmosphere where man's natural drive to invent is subverted to the cause of making money for rogues only because it is possible. Chancellor lays out an argument for rigorous government intervention to create a playing field where financial creativity is at the service of greater mankind, and no more. Of course Chancellor knows such a balancing act is all but impossible, but he does invoke the example of John Maynard Keynes, both a humanist and successful speculator, as evidence of a compromise third way. The book finishes up with an exposition of the growing derivatives threat and uses arguments developed in the rest of the book; the Tulip Mania, The Mississippi Bubble,the South Sea Bubble, the 1929 crash, the Japanese real estate orgy of the 80s, the LTCM debacle, the tech bubble of the 90s and the exertions of Boesky and Milken, to point out that they all share the same structural underpinnings, yet general complacency pervades the marketplace, as it did in the past, with the same old saw - this time is different. Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

History and Industry under one cover.......2006-06-09

I have a fair amount of background in sociology, economics, and finance, which allowed me to enjoy the book a lot more than the average uninformed reader. Chancellor succeeds with this book because he makes this reading amusing, educational, and entertaining all at the same time. A word of caution though:

First, this is not an analysis of manias, panics, or crashes. Nor is it a study about the boom and bust cycle structure. Rather, Chancellor analyses the very speculations in which people have engaged through some of the manias that Kindleberger, Galbraith, and Shiller have covered in their work.

Second, if you do end up getting the book, look up some elementary background information about stocks, bonds, interest rate movement, putts, calls, dividends, options, futures, hedging, swaps, and perhaps a few other financial instruments and methods.

Another great book that provides a great amount of historical detail in finance and its role in commerce is Braudel's second volume of Civilization and Capitalism titled "The Wheels of Commerce"

A wonderful book!.......2005-11-20

This is by far the best history of speculative excesses money can buy. A wonderful book: Detailed and well-researched but yet light and extremely amusing. Truly a must-have-read!

Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

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Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation

Manufacturer: Diane Pub.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 0756757460

Product Description

A lively & original history of stock market speculation from the 17th cent. to 1998. Traces the origins of the speculative spirit back to ancient Rome & chronicles its revival in the modern world: from the tulip scandal of 1630s Holland, to "stockjobbing" in London's Exchange Alley, to the infamous South Sea Bubble of 1720. Here are brokers underwriting risks such as highway robbery; lottery tickets circulating as money; wise & unwise investors such as Benjamin Disraeli & Ivan Boesky. From the Gilded Age to the Roaring 20s, from the 19th-cent. railway mania to the crash of 1929, & through to Day Traders, this book tells a fascinating story of human dreams & folly through the ages

Devil Take the Hindmost.(Review) (book review): An article from: Finance & Development

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Devil Take the Hindmost.(Review) (book review): An article from: Finance & Development
Charles Kramer
Manufacturer: International Monetary Fund
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Finance & Development, published by International Monetary Fund on March 1, 2000. The length of the article is 532 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Devil Take the Hindmost.(Review) (book review)
Author: Charles Kramer
Publication: Finance & Development (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2000
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
Volume: 37 Issue: 1 Page: 53

Article Type: Book Review

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Of Bulls and Bubbles.(Review) (book review): An article from: Policy Review

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Of Bulls and Bubbles.(Review) (book review): An article from: Policy Review
Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Manufacturer: Hoover Institution Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Policy Review, published by Hoover Institution Press on December 1, 1999. The length of the article is 4095 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Of Bulls and Bubbles.(Review) (book review)
Author: Holman W. Jenkins Jr.
Publication: Policy Review (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 1999
Publisher: Hoover Institution Press
Page: NA

Article Type: Book Review

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The Printed Word in 2001.(Review) (book review): An article from: Strategic Finance

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The Printed Word in 2001.(Review) (book review): An article from: Strategic Finance
Michael Castelluccio
Manufacturer: Institute of Management Accountants
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Strategic Finance, published by Institute of Management Accountants on December 1, 2000. The length of the article is 809 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Printed Word in 2001.(Review) (book review)
Author: Michael Castelluccio
Publication: Strategic Finance (Refereed)
Date: December 1, 2000
Publisher: Institute of Management Accountants
Volume: 82 Issue: 6 Page: 71

Article Type: Book Review

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Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
Edward Chancellor
Manufacturer: Farrar Straus & Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O93S3S

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Devil Take the Hindmost: A History of Financial Speculation
Edward Chancellor
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OXJTO6

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